


call me from the altar

by drmsqnc



Category: Sally Face (Video Games)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Intimacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-04
Updated: 2019-02-04
Packaged: 2019-10-22 01:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17653214
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drmsqnc/pseuds/drmsqnc
Summary: "Like rain. Or cigarette smoke."





	call me from the altar

_Tap._

It fits that you’re bleeding when you see him again.

Motion registers in the corner of your visión, the railing complaining with a low moan from the sudden affront of weight. Long, pale fingers reach out to steady you against rusted metal, tapping against your forearm expectantly.

Bandages rip between your teeth. The groan that leaves you is long and guttural, less out of anger and more of mindless irritation.

 _Tap_.

You grunt and hand them over.

Goosebumps follow the path of the touch: over your chest, past your waist, so light the sensation is near non-existent. Chills bud your flesh. Even now, he still has dead man’s hands.

“Well,” says Sal. “Welcome back to hell. Done running yet?”

Indignation floods you like a dam burst.

“Running?” You bridle, inhaling sharply. “I–why would you?–I never–”

He makes a soft punch of a sound that suspiciously resembles laughter. Your hackles drop almost as embarrassingly quick as you’d raised them. Of course. You tip your chin down and finally look at him.

The obvious details roll in first: the scars, the significant lack of pigtails. From where he is crouched at your feet, any height change is less noticeable, but no doubt present. Your fingers twitch involuntarily. You want to sink your hands into his freshly dyed hair, to rake your nails down his scalp and cup the back of his skull like a prayer. A tide roars in the back of your ears.

“You’ve grown up, Fisher,” you say quietly.

He’s finished dressing the scratches at your knees now. You’re pretty sure he has for a while. Nevertheless, he lingers, smoothing over the band-aids with his thumbs. Again. Again. Slowly. Warmth curls your toes in your drenched socks.

“Yeah?” he says. His voice is a husky rasp of a thing, dulcet and crumbly through the mask. “Well you’re the same.”

When he drops to the floor it’s jerked, stilted. You’re reminded of the marionettes you owned as a child at the way he moves, crimson stockings and strings and empty white eyes.

Without a warning, he snags a fist into your coat and tugs you down. You flail momentarily, close your eyes where you’re messily pressed against him. As if this were normal. As if it hadn’t been four years since you’d last breathed the same air as Sal Fisher.

“People contain blood, in case you forgot,” you scrape at the dried flakes of red pasted to your palms, just enough for it to sting. “And gravel will always hurt.” Pause. “You smell like ghosts.”

Sal takes the abrupt change of subject in stride. “'N what’s that smell like?”

“Mm?” You murmur.

“Ghosts.”

“Like death and despair.”

He huffs. You promptly ignore him. “And sweat. And laundry detergent.”

“Hilarious.“

"Noted.”

“That’s not what they smell like.”

“That right?”

The next pause stretches far longer than it should, and you already know Sal is overthinking your flippant statement. You backtrack so quickly you might as well have not spoken.

“Look,” you stumble, wishing you could pull out your tongue. “I may not be officially part of the ghostbusters or you know, whatever you and Larry–and Todd? Todd–call yourselves, but I have seen more than enough just being around you.”

 _I believe you,_  is the unsaid floating above your heads.  

More time passes. You count every painful second as gemstones.

“Hey,” you croak after second thirty-four. “You know, have you seen Ashley yet–”

“It depends on where you are,” Sal says. Your mouth shuts audibly. His eyes train themselves on his old sneakers. “The location of the communication. Most of them just generally take on whatever smell was lingering when they…passed. Like rain. Or cigarette smoke. Or a little girl locked in a filthy, disgusting bathroom,” his teeth grit and you know he’s trapped somewhere else entirely, a memory you aren’t witnessing.

“Darker deaths are different. The murders. The suicides. Grittier. More metallic. Like you’re taking a shot of raw zinc. It’s in your ears, burning through your eyes and throat, just building and building and  _building_. Yet underneath all that, at their base, the deceased are all the same. They all just feel,” he exhales, voice running airy and near silent, “tired.”

The roof-top wind howls.

“Sal,” you say, very gently.

“‘m fine.”

“ _Sal_.”

He meets your eyes wordlessly.

He’s here.

Are you?

You tentatively reach out.

You are.

Something like a whine is muffled from behind his prosthetic the minute your skin touches his. You tip forward uncontrollably as a rush of heat dizzies you straight through. His shirt crinkles between your fingers. “ _Sal_ ,” you say again. He breathes something that may or may not have been your name, a hot, damp puff of air into the curve of your neck. Your leg locks underneath his thigh. His knee presses into your stomach. You are squeezed so close together it’s like you’re trying to become one.

“ _Sal_.” You can't stop. Where your lips are cracked, affection fills your mouth like sesame oil. In return, your name is clearer this time, reverent, porcelain fragile. A timorous worship. He hiccups, the cold plastic of his mask digging into the spongy flesh behind your jaw. You don’t ask him to take it off. You don’t do anything.

The sun breaks through the clouds. The world warms and simmers and him, you, all

breathes.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me @ my [tumblr](https://drmsqnc.tumblr.com)


End file.
